Professor Miriam Baer Offers Analysis of Mueller Report for Multiple Media Outlets
Professor Miriam Baer, an expert in criminal law and former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, provided her analysis on the impact of the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report to Vox and Politico, and on the program “Airtalk” on Southern California Public Radio and WSNC public radio’s “The Public Morality.” Baer concluded that while President Trump’s supporters can call it an exoneration, the report could provide a road map for impeachment.
“Even if each of the events described and analyzed by the special counsel independently falls short of establishing obstruction as a legal matter (and that’s a debatable proposition), viewed in the aggregate, they indicate a stunning willingness to ignore and subvert the rule of law,” said Baer in Vox.
In Politico, Baer cautioned that the road to impeachment will not be smooth, even with the detailed findings that Trump spent a great amount of time directing his aides to say or do things on his behalf that were untrue or aimed at undermining the Mueller investigation.
“All of these efforts are damning, particularly in the aggregate—but they also demonstrate the challenges inherent in an obstruction case,” said Baer. “The facts are muddy. There are a lot of moving parts, and it’s difficult to keep track of all the details. The portrait they paint nevertheless falls far short of an exoneration.”
On WSNC, Baer discussed the legal and statutory nuances of obstruction of justice. “Even though not every single incident has the perfect combination of evidence, it’s more than clear there are several incidents that are disturbing on their own, and certainly in the aggregate, show a sustained effort to undermine the investigation so that people should be concerned,” she said.
At the Law School, Baer is associate director of the Center for the Study of Business Law and Regulation and teaches in the areas of corporate law, white collar crime, criminal law, and criminal procedure. She has been an ongoing commentator on legal issues related to the Mueller investigation. Her paper, Sorting out White Collar Crime, has recently been published in Texas Law Review.